


I Don't Need Your Help

by thatoneauthor23



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abuse, Adult Harry Potter, Adult Hermione Granger, Anger, Angst, Azkaban, Bellatrix Black Lestrange Lives, Betrayal, Cheating, Crying, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Forgiveness, Good Narcissa Black Malfoy, Illnesses, Implied Sexual Content, Marauders, Ministry of Magic Employee Hermione Granger, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Not Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Past Domestic Violence, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reunions, Sad Ending, Sane Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Sequel, The Golden Trio, Violence, What Have I Done, What-If, Young Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:06:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26661901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatoneauthor23/pseuds/thatoneauthor23
Summary: “Molly, stop! You’re better than this”.Bellatrix has survived the battle of Hogwarts and is locked up in Azkaban.Years lates, a mysterious illness slowly infects and kills the prisoners. When Hermione finds out, she decides to take in the only one who can still be saved.
Relationships: Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Rodolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Voldemort, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 8
Kudos: 126





	1. Prologue/Chapter 1

Molly’s hex hit Bellatrix, disarming her. Her wicked smile froze, her pupils dilated imperceptibly. Mrs. Weasley was about to use another spell, a menacing light glimming in her eyes, when her husband threw himself in front of her. 

“Molly, stop! You’re better than this”. 

For a split second, Bellatrix saw hesitation in the middle-aged woman’s eyes, but then she felt something binding her hands together before she could reach for her wand. A binding spell. She tried to free herself from the magic grip but couldn’t. She was powerless, defeated by an old mediocre traitor and forced to watch as her master fell. 

**CHAPTER 1**

Hermione Granger violently slammed the latest copy of the Daily Prophet on her desk, beside the papers she had to take care of, and leaned on the back of the chair, crossing her arms across her chest. 

She sat there for a couple of minutes, fidgeting in her seat, then she got up, grabbed the paper and strode to the Minister’s office. 

Once she knocked on the door, Kingsley Shacklebolt’s warm and reassuring voice invited her to come in. Hermione thew the Daily Prophet in his hands as soon as she walked into the room. 

“Is any of this true?!” she questioned furiously, pointing to an article about the mysterious epidemic that was killing Azkaban prisoners like flies. 

“A good morning to you, Miss Granger” replied Kingsley calmly, used as he was to Hermione’s outbursts about the most random subjects. “As you very well know, the Prophet blows things out of proportion and…” 

“Is any of _this_ true?!” she repeated even more sternly. 

The Minister huffed and graced a hand across his forehead, not knowing where to begin. “Yes, some inmates have passed due to this unknown illness we don’t have a cure for, and many more have been infected… but we’re doing everything we can to…” 

Hermione cut him off: “Who has died?”. 

“Travers, Rookwood, Selwyn and the Lestrange brothers… Rabastan and Rodolphus. Alecto Carrow is pretty much irrecoverable, and the nurses have lost their hopes with Avery too… one of the few still standing is Bellatrix Lestrange”. 

The young witch was taken aback by this last piece of information: she knew that the Death Eater was remarkably strong, but she was convinced that, with Voldemort gone, she wouldn’t have lasted more than a couple of years in Azkaban. 

Instinctively, she brought her left hand to the scar on her opposite arm. The word “Mudblood” still read clearly on her fair skin. This action only lasted a split second, then she put herself back together and demanded: 

“I have to go there, Kingsley”

“Hermione, I don’t think it would be…” 

“I have to” she reiterated coldly.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

“ _I won’t_ ”

She had already lived through that scene, years before, but it still felt familiar. 

“ _Young lady, I won’t tolerate any of this under my roof_ ” her father retorted sternly. Bellatrix saw herself, so much younger, shrug and hold back the tears. She was sat on a black leather sofa at Black Manor. She was nineteen. 

“ _Father, I don’t love him_ ”. 

“ _You still believe that love has anything to do with marriage? You’re not in a fairytale, Bella_ ” replied her mother, her icy blue eyes staring deeply into her dark ones. 

“ _I do not intend to marry Rodolphus Lestrange! He’s a pathetic swine!_ ” 

“ _Don’t you dare to insult your bethroted!_ ” replied Cygnus Black, reproachful “ _and don’t you dare to talk back to your parents_ ” 

“ _Or what…?_ ” she replied, her tone full of arrogance. She wanted to challenge him. 

The last thing she saw was her father raising a hand and a sting in the left side of her face. 

“ _This will serve as a lesson. You will marry Roldolphus Lestrange whether you like it or not, Bellatrix. Or a slap will be the last thing you’ll worry about_ ”. 

A single, wet tear rolled down her cheek, then she turned around and ran out of the room. 

Where the hell was she?! Maybe the Dementors were back at Azkaban to take away the very last happy memories she had left, throwing her into a never ending spiral of darkness and misery. 

She felt something burning from the inside, like a fire she could not bear. She wanted to open her eyes, but she couldn’t. Then, she felt a familiar voice from afar, a voice she hadn’t heard in decades. 

“Her body temperature is stabilizing, if we carry on she will live through the night”. 

Andromeda!


	3. Chapter 3

“Why her, Hermione? Why that sick…”.

Hermione just stared back at her friend, not daring to speak. 

“You know what she’s done right?! She tortured Neville’s parents! She killed Dobby! And Sirius”. 

Harry’s resentment grew stronger and stronger with every word. Why was she letting that mad woman in? 

Ron felt the same as Harry, so Hermione felt attacked on both fronts, like it used to happen when they were eleven and they’d always gang up on her. 

She stood up from the table they were all sitting around and crossed her arms across her chest, moving towards the window and looking outside. 

“I thought that Dumbledore had taught you something, Harry…”

Silence. The three of them would rarely talk about what had happened seven years prior. Everyone just tried to forget, to get rid of those awful memories. But it wasn’t that easy, obviously. Everyone had their scars, and they had to live with them. In fact, the person responsible for Hermione’s scar now lied unconscious in one of the Weasleys’ beds. 

“What do you mean?” asked Harry, tensely. 

“I mean that Dumbledore would always give people a second chance… like Snape”/ 

“Do not” snapped Harry “compare _her_ to Snape”. 

“She’s dying, Harry!” 

“Well maybe that’s what she deserves”. 

“Harry’s right, Hermione” joined in Ron, speaking up for the first time since the conversation begun. 

Hermione gave him a disappointed look, as if to say _Why can’t you be on my side for once?_ And he shrugged back at her. 

Many quiet minutes passed before Ron spoke again, letting out a frustrated groan: 

“Fine, but she can’t stay here. Mum is furious and if that maniac doesn’t kick the bucket soon, she will probably murder her in her sleep”. 

She felt a wave of relief washing over her as soon as she heard those words. However, she became preoccupied again immediately after: the Burrow had taken Bellatrix in for the past three days, but it wasn’t really fair to ask the Weasleys to bear that burden, especially a burden they despised. She had even noticed Molly, her now mother-in-law, had been acting angrier and more nervous than her usual, bubbly and loving self. She had even stupefied a garden gnome. 

She turned to Harry, hopeful, but he had put his arms up and was shaking his head: “Absolutely not, she could be rotting in Azkaban for all I care. She will never set foot in my house. And…”. 

He paused and took a moment to look at his best friends, a smile finally appearing on his face “Me and Ginny are expecting, we found out a couple of months ago”. He barely got to finish his sentence before Ron pulled him in a tight hug, that Hermione soon joined too. 

Once they finished congratulating Harry, he went back to being serious: “And that's just another reason why she can’t stay at mine. I’m sorry Hermione, but you should just send her back to Azkaban to die”.

“What about Grimmauld Place then?” she suggested tentatively. 

Harry had lived at 5 Grimmauld Place for a while after the war, but after getting married he and Ginny had decided to move not too far away from the Burrow, just like Ron and Hermione had done. Now the old house that had belonged to the Black family for generations was mostly left to itself, serving as a meeting place for the increasingly sporadic reunions of the Order of the Phoenix. 

Harry kept quiet, weighting that option. The thought of letting that disgusting murderer into his godfather’s home was an insult to Sirius’ memory, but he could not come up with another solution that didn’t involve locking that woman in the same cell she had been held prisoner in for the past sever years. 

“Alright then” he conceded with a sigh. His green eyes met her brown ones. 

“You’re doing what’s right, Harry” she answered seriously. 

“I hope so” said Harry, matching her solemn tone. “But if she even dares to do something remotely bad to any of us she will have to deal with me”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right I know it's been ages since I updated this, but I have been incredibly busy with work and life in general. Hope you enjoyed this chapter and thank you so much to everyone who has been leaving kudos x I don't want to promise there will be another update soon (clearly, I am not reliable enough lol) but I will try my best!


	4. Chapter 4

Hermione had spent the entire weekend trying to coordinate Bellatrix’s big move from the Burrow to Grimmauld Place. She had desperately looked for some volunteers to help her out, but anyone asked had just aguishly stared back at her. No one wanted to heal a well-known murderer, who had tortured and killed so many friends, relatives and school mates.

Finally, on Sunday evening, Harry had given up and had offered to give her a hand, Disapparating with her from the Weasley’s house to Grimmauld Place and then moving the Death Eater’s helpless body to a bedroom that had once belonged to Regulus Black. 

Hermione herself had chosen that room because it was the cleanest, in fact Kreacher had been particularly attentive to it in his yeas of devoted service. 

She checked the witch’s body temperature and her breath, as Andromeda Tonks had taught her to do, and then she left her on the bed to get some rest. 

Harry did not waste the opportunity to point out how Sirius would have never wanted his crazy cousin in his house, but he eventually left. 

Once she got home too, Ron welcomed her with more warmth than usual, with food already at the table (Mrs. Weasley had actually cooked it at the Burrow earlier). Their house was tiny but comfortable, filled with photographs and other memorabilia. A picture of Fred, young and smiling, was placed in the middle of the pantry, in the biggest frame. 

After dinner, Ron held her and led her to their bedroom, where they made love. It was affectionate but quick. Hermione let her husband touch her, kissing him back as he penetrated her, without really feeling any pleasure. Sex, as many other things in their seven years long relationship, had become nothing more than a habit, a small duty she had to respect every now and then but nothing more. 

However, Hermione had noticed an unusual rush this time around, as if he was trying really hard to do something. Maybe he felt pressured after hearing Harry and Ginny’s pregnancy news? That would not had been the first time for Ron to feel inferior to his best friend…

She was unsure of how she was feeling about it. Obviously, she was so happy for them, but as for herself she felt no desire to become a mother. Children were something she had no time for in her life at the moment. 

When she was about to lay down on the bed with her husband, who was already snoring loudly, she heard an annoying urge to pay one last visit to Bellatrix at Grimmauld Place. 

_She’s about to die_ she thought _and she’s my responsibility now that she’s out of Azkaban._

Hurriedly, she put on a baggy jumper and a pair of jeans, then she Apparated into the old building in London. 

She silently paced through the dark hallway, trying her hardest not to wake the ancient portrait of Walburga Black up. That house carried so many memories, and being there at night made her shiver.

Once she got on the doorway of Regulus’ room, decorated with Slytherin banners, Hermione glanced over at Bellatrix, asleep on the bed. 

She had visibly lost so much weight and looked so much older than when she had seen her at Hogwarts during the Wizarding War; her long, dark hair was tangled, dirty and getting greyer, her face was haggard and pale. However, she still maintained a strange charm, an inexplicable beauty. 

Bellatrix stirred in her sleep, tormented by some nightmare. A few unintelligible sounds escaped her dry lips; her breath was irregular and sometimes ragged. She had been close to dying for two weeks now. 

Hermione gazed at her for another long minute and then Disapparated back home, in her bedroom, but for some reason she could not get the image of that damned woman out of her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand over a month later, here's another chapter. Thank you so much to everyone reading and giving kudos to this story, I cannot express how much it means to me x


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